Coffee shop increasing prices...

Was this thread prompted by Ed Milliband on TV, telling us how the VAT increase was disproportionately unfair on "poor people", citing the increase in a cup of coffee from your local chain provider??

Personally, as someone who doesn't fall into the category of "poor", I rarely afford myself the luxury of this sort of indulgence. The attrition of your funds over time if you frequent these places on a daily basis is considerable. Only an idiot would flush away money on such things if they had a limited income!

I find it bizarre that the Labour leader can equate expensive coffee shops with the NEEDS of "poor people". Just another example of left wingers not having any ability for rational thought or any commercial sense!

Our country needs a wake up call on personal expenditure (£1.4trillion of personal debt in the UK at present).

The solution is simple, but it has been branded uncool to be realistic about money; you cut your cloth rather than adopt a stance of instant debt incurring self gratification (VAT increase or No VAT increase)

Just shows how out of touch politicians really are and that people need to wake up and..... no I won't say it! regarding how they manage their means.

@Dibbs, in my defence I'd been on the M6 for rather too long and that road does funny things to a man, i'm not proud of it but i was in need of caffeine. Still was after that lame excuse for a cuppa...
And as for us all being "guilty of funding the swines" i was only referring to those of us (me) mug enough to buy their stuff in the first place...

... (by the way, what do Costa put in their "coffee" that makes it stay so hot for so long?) but if you actually want to taste it, well, come on now, cough up. It's a p**s take but by going there i'm as guilty as anyone else.

Take away cup might be double walled. Cup with lid. Thick form to reduce heat escaping. In the cafe the cups are usually kept warm either on top of the espresso machine or something and the mug should be thick walled so to retain heat, but if temperature is too high the coffee is burnt. They need to check the temperature everytime or pull an empty short before filling the cup.

VAT is payable by the retailer on hot drinks like this whether you take out or eat in hence a small rise is justifiable fo rthis and the reasons given re costs. Did they reduce the price when VAT went down to 15%?

Our country needs a wake up call on personal expenditure (£1.4trillion of personal debt in the UK at present).

£1.4 trillion as a proportion of what?

The amount of personal debt is meaningless if you don't place it on the context of personal wealth. Debt is something that can on the whole only be afforded by the wealthy. You can't very easily get credit (for which read debt) of you're poor. On average people have a personal debt of about £14k, but personal wealth - assets/property/savings of £100k. The vast majority of debt is held by people who can perfectly well afford it. All sounds very prudent to me.

And I expect very few people get into debt on the strength of a nice sit down and a cuppa

toby1 - Member
Coffee - should be reserved for after meals, drunk black, preferrably espresso and ideally no sugar. If you are going to drink something that tastes like dirt at least drink a small stongly flavoured version of it, not a pot of p!ss warm milkly rubbish!

The barista who made my last cup of cafe coffee is just finishing up her Ph.D. thesis about coffee.

It was £2 for a mug. (She sells coffee and tea by the mug or cup, because we're not in Italy.)

Unlike most people studying for a Ph.D at least she won't be overqualified and unemployable when she's finished as she can carry on serving coffee, instead of getting a job in Macdonalds like all the others